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Log burner lit and slippers ready warming, I put on my coat and step out into the fading light of a November afternoon. The cold air bites my nose and I pull my hat down further over my ears and head off up the lane. The days have been bright with winter sunshine, but the blue of the sky has somehow lost its vibrancy giving way to more sleepy, muted tones with a touch of greyness about them. But, at this time of day, Sunset, the skies are aglow with the fiery palettes of burnt oranges, deep soulful amber and blood reds.

I wend my way along the lane and turn toward the woods where I am met with a veil of tumbling brambles hung from the hedgerow like the dripping architecture of a gothic cathedral.
In an instant I am cocooned in a swirl of leaves blown from their branches and whipped into an encircling frenzy by the wind. I struggle to pull my collar up, tuck my scarf in and hold on to my hat. What a Blessing to be surrounded by such colour, such energy and yet in all the warmth of the shedding colours of Autumn, I feel the chill of Winter.



Glancing up at the heavy skies filled with thick grey and white clouds I notice the bare skeletons of trees standing like menacing black silhouettes against the night sky.

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I am startled by the sound of rustling bushes as a lone pigeon takes flight and disturbs a brace of pheasants who have been feeding nearby.  They scurry across the bridleway their harsh call clattering and squawking as they try to flee the unknown predator. I hear a gunshot and then another and I understand their fear.
Perched on the top rung of the farm gate, sit a row of blackbirds all in a line like skittles. One by one they fly back and forth across the lane and into the hedgerow carefully selecting the last of the autumn berries and I stop to watch awhile. They are joined by a pair of blue tits, then sparrows, then a robin.  A pile of oak leaves starts to rise upward in front of me and out from underneath pops the inquisitive twitching snout of a hedgehog.  Sidling alongside the hedge appears the farmer’s horse, he stretches his head to reach over the gate and nods as if bidding a greeting. It’s beginning to look like an animal’s tea party and then, just as I turn to leave and as if by magic, we are graced with the exquisite presence of a roe deer.  So daintily she bows her head to graze and feeling like an intruder, I quietly withdraw and leave them to feed in peace.
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I cross the field heading home and spot the distinctive heads of teasels standing tall and proud amongst the failing hawthorn.  Such a curious plant; the large dark bulbous head full of prickles born upon such pale and fragile stems,  leaves withered and curled like the open fan-like fins of a Komodo dragon.  A sleeping dragon resting to re-gain his strength just as we need to at this time of year, as Nature does, so must we follow in all things.

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Blessed Be

 


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All illustrations © 2014 sarahNet Ltd